Beyond Experience - Tao - Part 1 of 2 - Part 2: I Mind Wisdom
Beyond The Gods - Buddhist and Taoist Mysticism
In Buddhist circles in China and Tibet there are many stories current about a marvellous gem that, once located, fulfills its finder's every wish. This gem lies always close to hand; but all too many people resemble the prince who travelled across the world to find it, only to discover in the end that it was inset in the very pendant he had been wearing all the time upon his forehead! To put it another way, the path that leads past heaven and far beyond the highest god-realms runs straight from the spot where we happen to be standing. It is mysterious and invisible to minds befogged by concepts such as good and evil, light and dark, going and arriving, self and other, is and is not. To perceive it requires the seeing beyond sight, the hearing beyond sound - a hard saying, yet in some circumstances dimple.
There is a religion beyond religions which leads directly to the grasping of the wish-fulfilling gem. For want of a better term, it may be called the mystic's quest. He may believe in this god or that in a multitude of gods or none at all and yet arrive at the truth that transcends all creeds. This truth is grasped when the mind in its stillness reaches the no-place beyond thought. Knowledge is discarded, wisdom remains. God and no-god are found to be identical. No mental concept is involved, only experience - a unique perception, joy-bestowing, that leads to imperturbable tranquility, to recognition of the beauty inherent in every flower, in every grain of dust, cement or dung, and to unqualified liberation from the human state. Enlightenment, Attainment of the Tao, Union with the Godhead are but high-sounding names - the experience is nameless, being luminously perceptible but utterly beyond description.
Mystics there have been in every continent throughout the ages, though seldom in great numbers. To discover the path that lies before one's nose, there should be no need to go to Asia. And yet? The grim technology now poisoning the world is surging there as elsewhere, but it is still rather easier to find accomplished guides in the East, even though it may soon be otherwise. For, whereas Christian and Moslem mystics have generally been looked upon askance by their coreligionists and not infrequently suppressed, Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist authorities openly proclaim the mystic's way to be the highest path of all. Not that most followers of those three faiths are practicing mystics - finding the path and cleaving to it are much too difficult for that - but at least they are encouraged to recognize the mystical goal as the crown of man's endeavors. Those among them who extol the hidden way are not, as used to happen in Europe, hustled off to remote monasteries, there to be reverently regarded, but unobtrusively restrained from proclaiming a truth with awkward implications for established hierarchies. Buddhists, in particular, have been successful in evolving potent methods for hastening the mystical experience. (Nowadays even Catholic prelates occasionally seek their guidance with a view to reviving the languishing contemplative orders.)
Unfortunately, almost everything pertaining to mysticism lies beyond definition and description. Transcending logic, it deals with truth that is attainable only by direct intuition. Therefore did the Taoist sage, Laotzu, say of it: 'He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.' Yet mystical experience is open to all who thirst for it. Whether as a result of teaching or of spontaneous intuition, it sometimes happens that a person tumbles into joyful awareness of the source of incomparable bliss that lies within himself. If a Christian, he may conceive of it in some such terms as sudden awareness of the immanence of God; others will interpret it in accordance with their varying traditions; but all who attain it are at a loss to communicate its nature in words. Perhaps I may be forgiven paraphrasing a few paragraphs from a Tibetan mysticism, The Way of Power, as these, though still very far from expressing the mystery, come as near to it as I can get:
There are moments when a marvelous experience leaps into mind as though coming from another world. The magic that calls it forth is often so fleeting as to be forgotten in the joy of the experience itself- it may be a skylark bursting into song, the plash of a wave, a flute played by moonlight or the fateful shrieking and drumming of a mountain storm; a lovely smile, perhaps, or a single gesture, form or hue of compelling beauty; a familiar scene transformed by an unusual quality of light, or a cluster of rocks suggestive of beings imbued with life. Or the spell may be wrought by a sudden exaltation, a jerking of the mind into an unknown dimension. A curtain hitherto unnoticed is suddenly twitched aside and, for a timeless moment, there stands partially revealed — a mystery. This mystery has a hundred names, all of them inapt. It has been called the good, the True, the Beautiful. Philosophers term it the absolute Christian mystics, the Godhead. It is the Beloved of the Sufi Moslems, the Tao of the Taoists and, to Buddhists, Nirvana, Womb of Existence, Suchness, the Void, the Clear Light, the One Mind. Were it not that frequent and clear visions of it engender a compassionate urge to communicate its bliss, it would be best to no name at all.
Names set bounds. Unfathomable, the mystery can be intuited but never grasped, how then named? On mystics and poets, visions of it sometimes dawn unsought; hearty extroverts, if they glimpse is it all, are shocked into fears for their sanity and dismiss it as a mental aberration - or run for the doctor! To say that it exists is to exclude from it the non-existent and limit it to what the speaker means by existence. To say that it does not exist involves the other side of the dilemma. Both concepts are too crude to describe its subtle nature. To say that it is pure mind is well enough in certain contexts, but it ought not to be set apart be nosy Taoists, for example, it is enough to experience direct communion with the Tao, without interpreting it at all; whereas Buddhists tend to relate the experience to their beliefs reincarnation and in Mind as the only reality.
What is needed for entrance to the path is not a particular religion with this or that dogma, but simply a holy state of mind - a conviction that something illimitable and sublime lies beyond the realm of shifting thought and vision, something to be apprehended in the stillness of our innermost being. When Taoist with his more impersonal conception affirms that 'all limits come from the Tao, return to the Tao, are the Tao', and Where a Christian declares that 'all things come from God Who, being omnipresent, permeates them all', both are pointing to the same inexpressible truth.
To pursue the path, what is chiefly required is a method whereby ego-consciousness and the coarse perceptions of the uses (including mind) are progressively transcended. The initial aim must be profound inner stillness, for the chief harriers to attainment are the ceaseless waves of thought that abstract the mind from its sacred quest. Hence Buddhists and musts have established techniques for controlling the mind's persistent wandering and for combating the restive assertiveness of the supposed 'ego'. In silence and stillness, perception is born.
Taoist mystical philosophy in the classical form first ex-pressed in the works of Laotzu and Chuangtzu, pays little heed In the question of survival after death, being centered upon the attainment of profound tranquility for its own sake. To the extent that those sages sought tranquility without reference to a setting or ultimate goal, they may be described as quietists rather than fully fledged mystics, though their writings -especially Chuangtzu's - are too enigmatic to permit any certainty. However, whether or not as a result of Buddhist Influence, there later developed in Taoist circles, side by side with the traditional quietism (and the popular search for a kind of physical immortality, which lies outside the scope of mysticism, thirst for a supremely transcendent goal - the achieve- from matter with which it is inseparably united. However, man's consciousness cannot easily divest itself of symbols. Accomplished mystics therefore tend to describe it in terms of the qualities lent to it by the filter of their senses: Clear Radiance, Immaculate Void, Ecstatic Bliss, Infinite Love, All-Embracing Unity.'
Of one thing I am sure - a mystical experience, whether vague or intense, is nothing less than direct intuition of Ultimate Reality. Suddenly the universe is seen, as it were, in another focus; the myriad objects are recognized as being simultaneously many and One; all kinds of contradictions fall into place; tranquility and joy supervene. All previous perceptions of oneself and one's surroundings are seen to have been blurred and distorted as if by a wrongly focused telescope; dimness having given place to blinding clarity, what once seemed commonplace presents a shattering loveliness. Even if the intuition is not intense, it will arouse a conviction that something mysteriously sublime lies beyond the scope of ordinary perception, something infinitely desirable which, if gazed upon for long, would miraculously reveal life's meaning!
The theistic term for it, 'union with the Godhead' strikes a nice balance between the Western conception of a supreme being and such Eastern expressions as the Tao, Nirvana, denoting not a being but a state. In any case, the affirmations of mystics of many faiths demonstrate quite clearly that the experience, except as regards its intensity, is the same, those who attain it being transported to a level at which distinctions such as 'being' and 'state', 'God' and 'no-God' arc meaningless. Words, beliefs, conceptual thought are lost in the 'clear white light' of Truth. It follows that, between the theistic Western concept and the more impersonal Eastern concept, there need be no conflict, once it is accepted that direct experience is all that matters.
Interpretations of the experience vary not only between followers of the theistic and non-theistic traditions, but also among people belonging broadly speaking to the same tradition. function; to enjoy the passing moment lightly for its own sake, savoring its special flavor with delight, but never forming attachments, much less giving way to passions. Living thus, attending to the inner silence, resting in objectless awareness, one gains imperturbable serenity. This in itself is enough. Some Taoist mystics, going beyond this, would add: When serenity is won, one may gradually come so close to the mysterious Source that the blissful unity in the very heart of multiplicity is ever present to the inward eye. By submerging ever more completely in the light flowing from within and abandoning that wraith once mistaken for an T, one leaps beyond the world of form and, in this life or at death, enjoys such full communion with the Tao that the finite is lost in the infinite. where, far from being diminished, the small becomes co-extensive with the vast, and thus the great transmutation is achieved.
Yet, despite the captivating qualities of Taoism, it is mysticism in its Buddhist form that has always appealed to me most and, as I am writing largely from first-hand experience, it will have a larger place than Taoism in all that follows. In China up in the middle of this century, there were thousands of Buddhist temples and, especially in the lush central provinces, not a few large monasteries. Their lovely curling roofs rose amidst the suburbs of ancient grey-walled cities, peeped from groves slinging to mountain slopes, or were mirrored in the waters of willow-fringed lakes, for Chinese Buddhists shared with Taoists 1 love of natural beauty. In the border regions, where the temples were often built in Tibetan style, the people - whether Mongol or Tibetan - were Buddhist almost to a man, unlike in China proper where people with Confucian leanings and adherents of the folk religion greatly outnumbered Buddhists.
In essence, though not necessarily in practice, Buddhism is a wholly mystical religion. To understand Chinese and Tibetan meditational and other yogic practices, it is necessary to have some knowledge of Mahayana principles. From my first teachers I learn t to distinguish between two levels of truth, two levels of ment of perfect union with the Tao in which nothing remains of the individual seeker although, paradoxically, nothing whatever is lost\ The one essential difference between this particular Taoist concept and that of Buddhism is that, whereas Buddhists, believing in rebirth, hold that failure to attain the goal must lead to further wandering through the realms of birth and death, the Taoist belief is that failure would entail a gradual disintegration of the spirit as final as that of the body.
Of the Taoists I met in the lovely hermitages scattered throughout the length and breadth of China and built in dreamlike settings amidst bamboos and pines, rocks and peaks, streams and cascades, many were simple quietists. Individualists devoted to the doctrine 'let things and people be as they are', they seldom talked of aims. Given to an antique mode of dress and old-world courtesy, they were fond of smiles and laughter, gentle, full of humor and happy to beguile visitors with simple meals, mulled wine and as much good conversation, wry or serious, as one could wish for. I was repeatedly struck by their tolerance, their love of natural beauty and of simple, frugal things - above all, by their tranquil joyousness. How well they exemplified one of their favorite tenets, namely that true happiness has little to do with fame, prestige or riches. No wonder Confucians, republicans and communists in turn considered them dangerously subversive; for who, having tasted the joys of tranquil non-involvement, would willingly return to the onerous political, social and commercial responsibilities imposed by highly organised societies upon their members? Here, in summary, is a description of Taoist mystical belief: The Tao is infinite, eternal. It is not only the fount, but the container, the very being, the true non-substance of the universe. Putting aside all calculated action, all greed, ambition and similarly egotistic qualities, one should learn to intuit and live by nature's rhythms; to meet gain and loss, life and death with smiling acceptance; to cease interfering and let everything just be, welcoming all kinds of beings and circumstances as separate manifestations of the Tao, each with its own place and In speaking thus, my teachers emphasized that all such terms and explanations inevitably do violence to the beauty and perfection of what Is, dragging the Nameless down to the level of philosophy and metaphysics. 'There are times', they would say, 'when the sight of a flower or the sound of a raindrop plopping into a pool tells you more of reality than all the words in the gigantic K'ang Hsi Encyclopedia; but, until intuition arises in your mind, words will have to do.'
Every step along the path brings an increase in wisdom -which has nothing whatever to do with knowledge. To hasten its coming, one must close the doors of the six senses and cultivate the objectless awareness that arises when thought is stilled. Side by side with wisdom must compassion be aroused, this being the remedy for wisdom's chief opponent - the concept of 'I' and 'other'. Methods of stilling the mind form the principle support of the Wayfarer. Some of these may at first sight seem bizarre - childish, even. Broadly they can be divided into 'self-power' and 'other-power', though meditation teachers smilingly explain that these two are the same. Since the effort to acquire wisdom must be made by the seeker himself, help from outside - whether human or divine - is of no avail; hence the term 'self-power'. Nevertheless, since the seeker is not really separate from the Source, the wisdom that wells up in the stillness is also 'other-power', an inflow from what, at the plane Of relative truth, is termed 'without'.
Author: John Blofeld
Beyond Experience
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